I'm not sure it's religious differences as much as different sets of facts. Conservatives want to believe there are two sexes, progressives see a spectrum. If you have entirely different fact sets, agreement is difficult.
This has gotten worse with the differences in education across the political spectrum as the areas those fact differences cover has increased. Conservatives believe climate change is a hoax, so no progressive policy on climate change would appeal to them.
Even now with Russia, we're seeing gaslighting on the conservative front about who started the war (it was Russia). That gaslighting is expanding the scope of mismatching fact sets even further.
Until we find a way to come back and share facts, I don't think we'll see a lot of agreement or compromise.
I think the people who are arguing from a place of facts can be persuaded and find a reasonable compromise. But the real religious zealotry comes from people who use facts when convenient but still argue from a place of belief. Climate change is actually a good ex, on the right you have these people as you say and on the left you have de-growthers, a group of whom believes capitalism is bad, we need fewer humans and that animals are superior, we should stop building etc. It's very religious. Obviously both groups are wrong.
I don't see a lot of persuasion coming from people with different fact sets. Very few people want to admit they are wrong! Just look at how the MAGA campaign owned the lie about immigrants eating dogs in Ohio. A clearly false claim that they owned because they didn't want to admit Trump was wrong. You cannot reason or compromise with that.
Yeah campaign commentary is always going to be odd, that's just that game (which is some % just vibes some % facts) - but one hopes in actual issues and debates of our time we could approach things less with the beliefs of large dogmatic tribes and more what is simply the best course of action (might not be politically correct for one group). Both parties are guilty on various things. If everyone was a few % more reasonable I think we'd get there (and also don't let extremists permeate a party)
That would require not having entirely separate information communities. The facts you see on Twitter are vastly different than what you see on Facebook, and Fox News is vastly different than NPR.
The legacy of the Trump movement is that the campaign never ends, so there is no reprieve. Everything is a campaign all the time, and facts are chosen or created to fit the policy goal.
There is no clear path back from that. Climate change, for example, is already affecting people's lives so they can see it with their own eyes. Yet still they don't believe.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. Progressivism especially seems like a stand-in for theistic belief among people who feel like they're too smart for trad religions, but as the right has gotten less and less religious across generations, I see it being the same thing among a lot of Trump people too.
The majority doesn't have a common fact set anymore. There used to be the local and national paper as our collective knowledge base. Now the population has segmented into different sects of memes that support their bias, world view, and ideology.
Lack of in-person community is also contributing to the fragmentation.
I don’t even know what leftists/progressives are supposed to stand for today. You don’t have to like or trust Mr T or Leon Muss, but people must acknowledge that some changes needed to occur after the past 4 or 5 years of insanity. Maybe they’re watching too much TV and are obsessed with “the news”, which is nothing but a psychological operation.
Not sure "religion" is the idea here, because I think many of "believers" also recognize the hypocrisy or stupidity of certain parts of their religion while also believing strongly in it's general good. For example, as a catholic, I do not hold any sacred value in the bread of communion as suggested, its supposed to be symbolic, I'm not going to react emotionally if you don't agree because I can recognize without the symbol its quite literally a wafer. What I see more generally is leftist politics (and conservatives too, to be very clear) has for many become their sole identity. And trying to argue with someone they are not who they see themselves as elicits emotional responses in a way little else can. For many, their incredibly siloed and isolated lives (historically low rates of in person interaction, cohabitation, church attendance, office attendance, you know the drill) has striped them of any traditional meaning and left them merely with the lowest common denominator, their political beliefs, to help them understand who they are in the world. I am *good* because I believe it's unfair that trans girls play HS Volleyball is the same as I am *good* because I believe everyone should get to decide who they are and use whatever bathroom they please is the same thing, it's identity. It's the belief that while I may not have a house or wife or family or job I care about, I do have the high ground morally, because I am part of the *good* team. And the good team is good, whatever facts or counterarguments you have don't matter, because I am good
Agree - but I can extend this to anything where belief structure and identity mix. See: software engineers big mad that AI is coding better than them, desecrating their sacred "hand crafted code quality", or artists who see AI generating art and instead of seeing how human and AI can combine, they get tribalistic and threaten people who make AI with death threats (I've personally gotten 5!)
This can work for anything that transgresses on what others consider sacred. To which my answer is be very careful what you put in the sacred box.
I've tried to have this "discussion" with atheists and others over the years. They've always hidden behind the second definition Webster provides because it requires God or the supernatural ergo their believeees can't be religion!
Also, consider: "And of course, no one wants to negotiate over sacred things."
Correction: "And of course, no one WILL negotiate over sacred things."
Nobody who truly believes can be moved about sacred things by logic.
It's why I declare myself heretic with regards each and every reality tunnel or ideological belief system that weak minded fools have ever shat into existence and weaker minded fools have glommed onto as an easy alternative to thinking.
Left, right, socialist, Democrat, Conservative, capitalist, Christian, Muslim, atheist, communist... They're all equally made up bullshit and beneath my contempt. I'm the enemy of every thought that lays claim to absolute truth.
I burn their sacred cows in flames of ridicule. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke! 😈
But you're doing the same thing. Right wingers call atheism a religion all the time (and progressivism, and environmentalism, and transgenderism, and a hundred other things for the same reason: "I've figured this out, I know I'm right, these people won't see it no matter how hard I argue - they are immune to reason, they are closed to the truth, they are a religion."
I'm not sure it's religious differences as much as different sets of facts. Conservatives want to believe there are two sexes, progressives see a spectrum. If you have entirely different fact sets, agreement is difficult.
This has gotten worse with the differences in education across the political spectrum as the areas those fact differences cover has increased. Conservatives believe climate change is a hoax, so no progressive policy on climate change would appeal to them.
Even now with Russia, we're seeing gaslighting on the conservative front about who started the war (it was Russia). That gaslighting is expanding the scope of mismatching fact sets even further.
Until we find a way to come back and share facts, I don't think we'll see a lot of agreement or compromise.
I think the people who are arguing from a place of facts can be persuaded and find a reasonable compromise. But the real religious zealotry comes from people who use facts when convenient but still argue from a place of belief. Climate change is actually a good ex, on the right you have these people as you say and on the left you have de-growthers, a group of whom believes capitalism is bad, we need fewer humans and that animals are superior, we should stop building etc. It's very religious. Obviously both groups are wrong.
I don't see a lot of persuasion coming from people with different fact sets. Very few people want to admit they are wrong! Just look at how the MAGA campaign owned the lie about immigrants eating dogs in Ohio. A clearly false claim that they owned because they didn't want to admit Trump was wrong. You cannot reason or compromise with that.
Yeah campaign commentary is always going to be odd, that's just that game (which is some % just vibes some % facts) - but one hopes in actual issues and debates of our time we could approach things less with the beliefs of large dogmatic tribes and more what is simply the best course of action (might not be politically correct for one group). Both parties are guilty on various things. If everyone was a few % more reasonable I think we'd get there (and also don't let extremists permeate a party)
That would require not having entirely separate information communities. The facts you see on Twitter are vastly different than what you see on Facebook, and Fox News is vastly different than NPR.
The legacy of the Trump movement is that the campaign never ends, so there is no reprieve. Everything is a campaign all the time, and facts are chosen or created to fit the policy goal.
There is no clear path back from that. Climate change, for example, is already affecting people's lives so they can see it with their own eyes. Yet still they don't believe.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. Progressivism especially seems like a stand-in for theistic belief among people who feel like they're too smart for trad religions, but as the right has gotten less and less religious across generations, I see it being the same thing among a lot of Trump people too.
The majority doesn't have a common fact set anymore. There used to be the local and national paper as our collective knowledge base. Now the population has segmented into different sects of memes that support their bias, world view, and ideology.
Lack of in-person community is also contributing to the fragmentation.
I don’t even know what leftists/progressives are supposed to stand for today. You don’t have to like or trust Mr T or Leon Muss, but people must acknowledge that some changes needed to occur after the past 4 or 5 years of insanity. Maybe they’re watching too much TV and are obsessed with “the news”, which is nothing but a psychological operation.
Not sure "religion" is the idea here, because I think many of "believers" also recognize the hypocrisy or stupidity of certain parts of their religion while also believing strongly in it's general good. For example, as a catholic, I do not hold any sacred value in the bread of communion as suggested, its supposed to be symbolic, I'm not going to react emotionally if you don't agree because I can recognize without the symbol its quite literally a wafer. What I see more generally is leftist politics (and conservatives too, to be very clear) has for many become their sole identity. And trying to argue with someone they are not who they see themselves as elicits emotional responses in a way little else can. For many, their incredibly siloed and isolated lives (historically low rates of in person interaction, cohabitation, church attendance, office attendance, you know the drill) has striped them of any traditional meaning and left them merely with the lowest common denominator, their political beliefs, to help them understand who they are in the world. I am *good* because I believe it's unfair that trans girls play HS Volleyball is the same as I am *good* because I believe everyone should get to decide who they are and use whatever bathroom they please is the same thing, it's identity. It's the belief that while I may not have a house or wife or family or job I care about, I do have the high ground morally, because I am part of the *good* team. And the good team is good, whatever facts or counterarguments you have don't matter, because I am good
Agree - but I can extend this to anything where belief structure and identity mix. See: software engineers big mad that AI is coding better than them, desecrating their sacred "hand crafted code quality", or artists who see AI generating art and instead of seeing how human and AI can combine, they get tribalistic and threaten people who make AI with death threats (I've personally gotten 5!)
This can work for anything that transgresses on what others consider sacred. To which my answer is be very careful what you put in the sacred box.
AI is a good example of something people approach with almost religious ferver these days
Critical thinking like common sense is not that common. Great post.
I've tried to have this "discussion" with atheists and others over the years. They've always hidden behind the second definition Webster provides because it requires God or the supernatural ergo their believeees can't be religion!
Also, consider: "And of course, no one wants to negotiate over sacred things."
Correction: "And of course, no one WILL negotiate over sacred things."
Nobody who truly believes can be moved about sacred things by logic.
It's why I declare myself heretic with regards each and every reality tunnel or ideological belief system that weak minded fools have ever shat into existence and weaker minded fools have glommed onto as an easy alternative to thinking.
Left, right, socialist, Democrat, Conservative, capitalist, Christian, Muslim, atheist, communist... They're all equally made up bullshit and beneath my contempt. I'm the enemy of every thought that lays claim to absolute truth.
I burn their sacred cows in flames of ridicule. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke! 😈
That's a pretty isolating religion you got there, hoss. 😈
It's a love affair, mainly Jesus and my hotrod 😇
Well, the only thing left is to ding a ding dang your dang a long ling long.
It’s extremely important to know who is excluded because of our beliefs. Ross has gone the easiest route, everyone but himself.
Nuh, uh. Everyone including myself 😉
But you're doing the same thing. Right wingers call atheism a religion all the time (and progressivism, and environmentalism, and transgenderism, and a hundred other things for the same reason: "I've figured this out, I know I'm right, these people won't see it no matter how hard I argue - they are immune to reason, they are closed to the truth, they are a religion."
Conservatives are religious too, I said this in the post. Both sides on the extremes are very dogmatic about these things.
Modern politics and modern religion are the exact same thing.